OK here's the deal. I have a lot of rifles I reload for and most shoot around an inch or so for 3 shots. These rifles seem to take a lot of concentration to shoot that well. Then I have this Remington Model Six Pump in 30.06. This is the most inexpensive rifle I own and with inexpensive Federal Powershok ammo it will shoot an inch or better anytime I take it out. It isn't fussy, I just bag it on the bench and have at it..........it is so much easier to get good groups from this rifle. Same goes for my Remington XP-100 in 7MM BR. Off the bags I can shoot it just as easily and get good groups too!
Why are some rifles just easier to shoot than others???
Some call it Mojo...
I call it Ju-ju
Can't speak to the pump rifle, but the XP is likely more accurate than most rifles. I've heard it attributed to the barrel being stiffer than a typical rifle barrel due to shorter length. I don't know the science to back that up, but I have some XP's and they will outshoot most hunting rifles if you can hold them.
A rifle is the sum total of many variables. Sometimes these variables line up and other times they don't. Ju-ju is a good description.
Some rifles have the souls of really smart Labrador retrievers. Some are just average wage-slaves trying to get by. Some are possessed by demons.
I'm going to pull a little from a couple opinions. Dan is right about the ju-ju. Mule Deer is right about some being posessed by demons.( which I'm not sure isn't the same thing as having the souls of labrador retrievers...)
Its all magic and smoke and mirrors....otherwise why would a pump shoot so good...? Thats just WRONG!
Ingwe
The demons can be found living in the scope........
The notions of necromancy are entertaining but I suspect the reasons are largely mechanical.Owners and users of Remington pumps back here have known this for years and I've seen Remington pumps at the range shooting groups that discourage hard-boiled bolt action guys.
The barrels are sorta thick and they hang loose from the receiver with no stock pressure to screw things up;So they just "drill" shots,notwithstanding mushy triggers.And the speed with which you can slap three shots,off hand,in an 8" target makes me wonder why a guy would lug anything else in heavy cover.
Ahhh yes Bob, but I'll bet you've lugged other rifles into heavy cover....
Ingwe
Ingwe;; I never claimed to be rational, and hardly ever practice what I preach......all my shooting of running/jumping New England whitetails has been done with a bolt gun...when adrenalin is up, I can make them go pretty fast
OK Bob...just what I thought...we are a LOT alike!
Just like crying in baseball..." Theres no rational thought in rifles!..."
And as far as a pump that shoots good, I'll go with the " Mythbusters" line...
" I reject your reality, and substitue my own..."
Ingwe
Ingwe:My range sessions with them tell me I am faster with the pump,and about as accurate.....,but somehow, I simply cannot leave a M70 FW at home.Light Mausers in 270 have been called up for duty, too.
Facts and reality are never allowed to interfere with old habits,dead game, irrational emotion and delusion.
I have hunted with several Remington pumps over the years. The barrels of the 760's in theory are free-floated, but my latest one (a used .270 my wife bought me for my birthday last fall, since it was like new and on sale for such a low, low price that I was trying to make up my mind...) required some work with a round rasp in order to be really free-floated.
Before that it strung shots up and down 3" or so because of the forend tapping the barrel. Now, however, it averages about 1-1/4" for 3 shots at 100 yards. But that's with the only load I've tried in it, 59 grains of H4831SC and the 130-grain Ballistic Tip. I suspect it will do even better with some fiddling, and perhaps with a 150-grain like the Hornady Spire Point.
A 760 .30-06 I had for a while in the 1970's would shoot into 1-1/2" or less with about any load--including Remington Accelerators, the saboted load that shoots a 55-grain .224 bullet at Swift velocities. This was unusual but a lot of fun. Remington sent me 5 boxes of Acclerators to test out and I mostly used them up shooting running jackrabbits, a lot of fun with a pump gun.
I also used it to shoot deer (mostly whitetails) we jumped out of brushy coulees in eastern Montana. Along with the practice on jackrabbits, I also shoot a pump shotgun quite quickly, and the .30-06 worked very well on running deer. I killed at least one buck with a second shot that I never could have gotten off with a bolt rifle--and I am pretty fast with a bolt too.
The Remington 7600 generally shoots pretty well out of the box, without any modifications. I borrowed one from Remington for a while a couple of years ago, a .308 that shot into an inch with factory Ultra Core-Lokt 150's, and killed a couple of deer with it.
There is nothing wrong with a good pump rifle for general big game hunting. They are usually accurate enough for 400-yard shooting, which is more than can be said about most hunters, and "eumatic," that word invented by British shotgun writer G.T. Garwood (known by by his pen name of Gough Thomas) that meant, essentially, easy to use.
But most hunters won't use one because they think pump-guns make them look like Elmer Fudd. They don't realize that the clothes they wear generally do that anyway.
I simply cannot leave a M70 FW at home.Light Mausers in 270 have been called up for duty, too.
Facts and reality are never allowed to interfere with old habits,dead game, irrational emotion and delusion.
Oh, thank GAWD!
I feel much better now, like the stars and planets are back in alignment, and all is as it should be...
Ingwe
Mussy triggers ? You might be surprised what a good smith can do for one. I'm getting one in a trade, as soon as my smith can replace the front sight with a big, 3/16th's inch white bead, ala Ruger Alasakan. He reworked the trigger to the point where it has no creep at all. Or so it seems to me.
I'm still a doubtfull as to this rifle's usefulness with iron sights. But, considering I'm trading for it with the elk rifle I found two season's ago in Montana, it's not going to cost me much.
Besides, it will work alot like my new 28 ga. 870 that I convinced myself I had to have as well. E
Best guess about why some guns are "easier" to shoot than others is all about stock fit. I have one older Mauser sporter that is basically amazing.......and I've never been able to detirmine exactly why.
This rifle is VERY accurate from a bench and will keep 5 shots under an inch all the time.....sometimes hovering near 1/2" on a good day.
However, what makes ths particular rifle so good is what it does when the shooting is fast and furious. It just never seems to mss.....no matter what I do!!
Over the years I have pulled off some stunts with this rifle that just can't be explained. One late season hunt for meat deer......four deer, running, at 250 yards resulted in four skinning jobs. It happened so fast that I didn't have time to think......just throw up and shoot.
This past season, I topped a small hill and a good buck broke for the wild blue yonder. Running full out at 150 yards, through head-high clear-cut, the deer was popping in and out of sight as he jumped through the brush. I never thought....just pulled up the rifle and the scope found the bobbing deer and went off. After the shot, I honestly couldn't have told you IF I hit the deer, much less where I hit it....it simply disappeared. Walking out, I found him shot directly through the shoulders and dead.
Another time I was hunting in a very thick creek bottom where visability was basically limited to 25-30 yards......however, I saw a movement (just at daylight) at something over 100 yards away. Thought it was a bird flitting around, but the scope came to my eye just as a piece of antler moved through a "window" in the brush. I don't remember pulling the trigger, but the gun just sort of went off. I remember thinking after the shot....."did I really see a deer??", yes!!...."but did I really see horns??", yes, and they were GOOD!!
I walked out to were I thought the deer had been and there was a very nice 140-class buck shot through the shoulders. I later tried to recreate the shot and could find only a single 6" "hole" through the brush that I could have shot through. Can I explain it....no, but that rifle just seems to be "magic" and finds a way.
If this had happened once or twice, I'd write it off to luck.....but this has happened dozens of times over a 30 year period. There is just something about that particular rifle. I've even tried to duplicate the exact balance and stock of this rifle on others......and though I get close, none is "perfect" and shoots as well. Some are as accurate on the bench, but none feels the same in the field and has the "magic".
When you find a "magic" rifle.....don't queston it, just never let it go. That's probably the case with your 760.....logic doesn't apply, it just is!! But wouldn't it be great if we could figure it out and copt it!!
That seems to be the case with my 7x57...we just plain get along and things always seem to go right when I'm hunting with it...
Ingwe
E: Any smith worth his salt in the northeast can do wonders to a 760 trigger,much better than they come out of the box for sure.
I love pumps and have shot piles of ruffed grouse with pump shotguns back here.I have owned and shot 760's and 7600's, but some how bolts always end up on a hunt.
I am very superstitious.....
I'm still looking for a used Remmy pump in 308. Ever since Skane posted that extra sexy Amish Machinegun that HB rifles Nate did, I've had a woody for one.
I almost bought a 30-06, but converting one to a Whelan wasn't in the budget.
Ingwe: The universe is properly aligned....
Much as I love pumps, levers,etc.,switching action styles for big game hunting, regardless of their virtues,never seemed like a really good idea to me......
Yeah, Bob, I'm pretty superstitious too. My present plans call for one primary rifle on my hunting trips, a bolt gun, another backup rifle, another bolt gun, and maybe the 760 for those really heavy cover elk hunts where I run the risk of hitting something like a twig. Having learned the hard way that when bullets hit twigs they do lots of things, none of them good, the only solution I can come up with is to shoot again since the mythical "brush busting" bullet or load apparently doesn't exist.
During the off season, I plan to load the 760 with Speer Varmiter 110 gr. HP's. That will go with me when I scout via Jeep and run into our local coyotes.
Then, of course, is the fun factor of shooting running jack rabbits and other forms of practice. E
E: Yes, once you shoot, you're commited;ya gotta keep going till the action stops!
Why are some rifles just easier to shoot than others???
An old man in Montana knew why:
Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't. (Old Lodge Skins, 1970)
--Bob
I have grown this opinion.
Most modern rifles will shoot pretty good unless there is something wrong like a bedding problem, out of round chamber etc.
It is basically a matter of trying different ammo until you find something it likes.
it seems that some rifles, anyone can shoot... some, none can shoot...
my partner shoots my best rifle just a tad better'n i do... gripes me no end...
The magic is in the stock...
I've had a few rifles that shot easy and handily, ignored my poor shooting form and other idiosyncrasies I've had through the years... The kind that just killed what I pointed them at with no muss or fuss and they always seemed to be of the bolt action variety with short barrels from 18-20", small lightweight scopes, and were usually 6mm-35 caliber.
They jumped to the shoulder and aligned my crosshairs in the kill zone with never a thought and performed well at the range on any day year in and year out.
Ah yes... And I've had a few that seemed possessed and that seemed delighted to foil any and all attempts to produce reliable and repeatable accuracy despite my best efforts.
The soul of a rifle is best left unchanged and unchallenged and I usually keep the easy ones and pass the possessed ones on to some other unlucky hunter...
$bob$
The soul of a rifle is best left unchanged and unchallenged and I usually keep the easy ones and pass the possessed ones on to some other unlucky hunter...
$bob$
Must be why we usually refer to our favorite rifles in the female gender.
The bigger question is what to do with or how to explain the abnormalities.
The ones that only shoot so so at the bench, but find the x on game. Have a Mod70 sporter LT in .30-06 that shoots consistent 1.5in with just about anything and rarely any better, but is death wind when it comes to hunting.
The ones that shoot good at the bench and carry great, but when hunted you never can find game. Had a pre64 FWT .30-06 that was an honest 3 shot 1in gun that when I hunted with it I couldn't hardly find anything alive in the woods let alone a legal whatever. Sold and bought it back, then finally gave up on it. SN:482406 if any of you have it and how much do you want.
I'll throw it in a McM and see if that changes things.
Have a Montana .338Fed now that sometimes shoots great/sometimes not, but has mojo when it comes to being a game attractor and so far puts them on the ground.
Another is a Hart rebarreled Mod 70 .300WM that shoots fantastic and-knock on wood-has yet to miss. Damn thing doesn't like me that much since I've aged a little and knocks the hair off my head when I let one go. Can't bring my self to sell it.
Anew .308W that is a flat out shooter has yet to show its true identity. Time will tell...